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Beginner’s Luck
Beginner’s Luck by Kate Clayborn is $1.99 at Amazon! It’s a Kindle Daily Deal and hasn’t been price-matched yet. Sarah gave this book a C- because she was hoping for some more depth in the book. However, I remember seeing the Bitchery recommend it in comments. This might be a Your Mileage May Vary situation. It also has a scientist heroine!
When three friends impulsively buy a lottery ticket, they never suspect the many ways their lives will change—or that for each of them, love will be the biggest win of all.
Kit Averin is anything but a gambler. A scientist with a quiet, steady job at a university, Kit’s focus has always been maintaining the acceptable status quo. A sudden windfall doesn’t change that, with one exception: the fixer-upper she plans to buy, her first and only real home. It’s more than enough to keep her busy, until an unsettlingly handsome, charming, and determined corporate recruiter shows up in her lab—and manages to work his way into her heart . . .
Ben Tucker is surprised to find that the scientist he wants for Beaumont Materials is a young woman—and a beautiful, sharp-witted one at that. Talking her into a big-money position with his firm is harder than he expects, but he’s willing to put in the time, especially when sticking around for the summer gives him a chance to reconnect with his dad. But the longer he stays, the more questions he has about his own future—and who might be in it.
What begins as a chilly rebuff soon heats up into an attraction neither Kit nor Ben can deny—and finding themselves lucky in love might just be priceless . . .
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Any Time, Any Place
Any Time, Any Place by Jennifer Probst is $1.99 at Amazon! Another Kindle Daily Deal and the whole series is included today. This is a contemporary romance and has a renovation element. Elyse read this one and gave it a B grade in a Lightning Review:
While the revenge part and the woodworking (hur) wasn’t a huge draw for me, the sexiness, the heroine and the restaurant environment made this contemporary stand out.
HGTV’s Property Brothers meets The Marriage Bargain in this second volume in the Billionaire Builders series, an all-new heart-wrenching and sexy contemporary romance from New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Probst.
When she was a teenger, Raven Bella Stratton’s father was killed in a horrible car crash. The bigger shock was the discovery of a woman with him—Diana Pierce—and their two fully packed suitcases with airline tickets to Paris. Devastated by her father’s betrayal, Raven went to live with her aunt, never truly overcoming the traumatic event. When she discovers that the mysterious woman had a family with a husband and three boys, Raven vows to leave the memory of her father behind.
Until Dalton Pierce visits one night and suddenly her past challenges her future…
Leaving his life in California behind to run Pierce Construction with his two older brothers, Dalton Pierce has enjoyed returning home and studying his passion of woodworking. But when he visits the local bar with his brothers one evening, he’s immediately drawn to the smart-mouthed, badass, sexy bartender who sets his body on fire. Unfortunately, she doesn’t seem as intrigued by him, and his multiple advances are met with rejection. When he offers to restore the bar back to its original glory, he begins to work with her on a daily basis, and falls harder. His plan of seduction slowly weaves a web around them both, until they are caught up in the spell. But Dalton doesn’t know the secret that can either destroy them both…or finally mend two broken hearts.
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The Secret She Keeps
The Secret She Keeps by HelenKay Dimon is $1.99! This is book two in Dimon’s newest series. Readers say this is a slower burn in both the mystery and romance, which seemed to divide dedicated Dimon fans. Have you read this one?
No matter where you run to…
Connor Rye seeks solace on remote Whitaker Island. When his first quiet evening ends with a blow to the head, it’s clear that nothing—and no one—is as it seems. Still haunted by his sister’s murder, he’s buried himself in work while trying to hold his family together. Now, when he has a minute to breathe, he knows better than to get involved with a stranger, but it might be too late to keep his distance.
Desire will find you…
For years she’s pretended to be someone else, but Maddie Rhine is done living in the shadows. Old habits are hard to kick however, and when her past follows her to Whitaker she’s forced to hide once more. Except with Connor. Effortlessly sexy Connor makes it difficult to ignore him. He sees right through her…and senses her fear.
Someone is watching her. And waiting for the right moment to strike. This time Connor vows to be ready.
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The Last Astronaut
The Last Astronaut by David Wellington is $2.99! This is near-future sci-fi with a heaping dose of horror; I’m so curious about it. Readers recommend this if you’re in the mood for something creepy, but wished it were more character driven.
Sally Jansen was once NASA’s leading astronaut, but her final mission ended in disaster. Haunted by her failure, Jansen now lives in semi-retirement, convinced her days in space are over.
She’s wrong.
A large alien object has entered the solar system and is now poised above the Earth. It has made no attempt at communication and has ignored all incoming transmissions.
At NASA’s request, Jansen must lead an expedition to the object in the hope of discovering its purpose. For all the dangers of the mission, it’s the one shot at redemption she always hoped for.
Yet when K-Space, a powerful corporation, launches its own rival mission intent on claiming ownership of the object and whatever lies within, what began as a mission to make First Contact becomes a desperate race against time.
As the object reveals its many mysteries, one thing becomes clear–the future of humanity lies in the hands of Sally Jansen. The last astronaut.
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MINOR MAGE by T. Kingfisher is 99 pennies. A young mage and his armadillo familiar go on a quest to end a drought. Darkly whimsical, per usual with Kingfisher.
MONKEEWRENCH by P.J. Tracy is also 99 pennies. Game developers with shady pasts embroiled in a serial killer case. If you like Leverage, this has a similar misfit team vibe, but more of a bloody and violent tone. I read this when it was fairy new (released in 2004), and it sticks in my memory as one of those rare prose puzzles where the answer isn’t clear until you have the final piece, and the final piece doesn’t turn up organically until just a few pages before All Is Explained, so “I figured it out!” is pretty much immediately followed by “You’re right!”, which was intensely satisfying pacing. I’m sure the paperback survived the moving purge, but I gladly blew a buck on the ebook, just in case.
*fairly new. There are no fairies in the serial killer book.
Thanks for the reminder, @Ren Benton. I had forgotten the title of this book but recalled that I really liked MONKEEWRENCH – great mystery and a fun set of individuals working to solve the mystery – and I wanted to read the next book in the series.
I enjoyed the entire Monkeewrench series, except for the last two or so. Interesting characters and I found the resolution surprised ME.
Monkeewrench and Dead Run are two of my comfort reads. Just read them again in the last couple months. The rest are kind of hit or miss for me. And, yes, the first time I read it, the resolution to Monkeewrench was fairly surprising.
I agree with the previous posters that Monkeewrench was really good, but the subsequent books less so.
There is nothing about the Kate Clayborn series that suggests it should be my catnip. I am not sure exactly how I wound up reading this series, but I L.O.V.E.D. it. It had just enough depth for me. It touches on serious subjects without getting too heavy. I believed in all the characters. Would read again! (In fact, I just might do so now.)
beginner’s luck was really enjoyable for the first 2/3 – it’s a story about two really decent people, with complicated motivations, and the secondary characters and family/friendships were great. But it started dragging in the last 1/3 and I sped through to get to the end. We f your catnip is decent people being pretty decent to each other (honestly that’s my catnip right now) it might be worth it at the sale price.
I did mostly enjoy the audiobook of “Beginner’s Luck” — about the only way I get to enjoy books these days. It wasn’t perfect and some of plot tracks were a mile wide, but it was a fun diversion.
I have to say that Beginner’s Luck was much better than C- in my opinion. I got it on a sale and read it because it did have a lot of good reviews, but the C- was always in my mind. Was really pleasantly surprised. I mean, I’d probably give it a B or B-, but I definitely think it deserves to be more positive leaning on the spectrum of grades. YMMV
I thought Beginner’s Luck was MUCH better than a C-. Given so much of the romance drivel out there, this was really good. Well-written, interesting complicated characters who were nice people. I even re-read it and enjoyed it the second time as well. I’d give it a B+. Not sure what the reviewer didn’t like!
I also thought Beginner’s Luck (and actually, all the books in that trilogy) was much better than a C-! I read all of them back to back, within about a week of each other. I found it to be well written (way above the normal romance bar, tbh), feature characters who were realistic and interesting, and ultimately kind, and the romance scenes were pretty steamy. Maybe if you’re looking for more, like, world-shattering angst or love-thwarted-by-fate, you’d find it a bit boring? But for me — and maybe this is a product of These Trying Times — it was a really enjoyable contemporary: well-written, not schmaltzy, reasonably high personal stakes and urgency but no pretense at saving the world, sexy, and with main characters who had reasonable hangups, good hearts, and worked through their issues without veering into martyrdom or TSTL drama.